


Someone to Love

by Wynn



Series: A Little Sugar in My Bowl [2]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: And Christopher, And Luke, And the lie that it's just coffee, But Also Some Angst, Coffee galore, F/M, Hot leather jackets, Mentions of Rory, Newly uploaded to AO3, Older Fic, Set four or five months after season 6 finale, When really it isn't, sass galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:16:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1280815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Just because I'm in misery/ I'm not begging for no sympathy/ But if it's not asking too much/ Just send me someone to love.</em>
</p><p>Two months after their hotel tryst, Dean hears about the break-up of Lorelai and Luke, and he calls Lorelai to check up on her. Coffee and sass ensue until they can no longer pretend it's just coffee and sass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coffee Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Nina Simone song of the same name.

The phone rings shrill and pulls Lorelai from a dreamless sleep. Thank god. She couldn’t take another subconscious revival of her litany of past relationship mistakes, her own personal sexual ghost of Christmas past on Thanksgiving Day. Or the day after Thanksgiving, the time nearly one in the morning according to the blurry pink numbers on her Hello Kitty clock.

The phone still rings and Lorelai fumbles for it in the dark. She finds it by her feet, tangled in her blankets, a ringing rat in a cotton maze. She wonders if that makes her the cheese as she burrows beneath the sheets. Maybe she’s the creepy scientist with the clipboard and the pocket protector and the orthopedic shoes. Do scientists wear shoes? She’s sure they wear shoes, something sensible and logical, no Jimmy Choos in their closets. God, she hopes she’s not the scientist. That would be creepy.

She grabs the phone and crawls back up to her pillow. “Isn’t it six in the morning over there?” she says by way of hello. “Or is it tomorrow? I never could keep it straight. They need a Rosetta stone for time, or maybe a babel fish, I don’t know. Can you translate time?”

She waits for Rory to respond, sleep tugging at her like a kid at his mother’s skirt. Or her mother’s, no gender bias here. The phone stays silent, and Lorelai huffs out a sigh. “Rory, you know I love you, but mommy has to get some sleep so she can get up bright and early tomorrow and help her mommy pick out the grand Gilmore foyer Christmas tree, so if you can—”

“It’s Dean.”

Lorelai freezes. Dean. Dean. It’s Dean. Dean on the phone. Dean on the phone with her. Dean on the phone with her at one in the morning. Dean. Dean who kisses like he—

Lorelai sits. She pushes those thoughts away, far, far away, stuffed in a closet in a safe tossed in a river with concrete blocks attached, big ones, like his hands.

Crap.

“Uh, Lorelai?”

“Yeah? Yes. I mean, yes, I’m, uh, here. On the phone. With you. Because you, you know, called. On the phone. Because phones are, uh, used for calling. You just press the numbers and call, unless you’re on a rotary phone and then you spin the numbers. Are you on a rotary? Of course not. Rotary phones are so 80s. Not even that. So 50s. And—”

“You’re freaking.”

Lorelai can’t tell if he’s amused or horrified by her phone babble. “I’m- no. I’m not. I’m fine. Great even. Some would say perfect. I don’t know who, but someone, somewhere probably would. Maybe in Siberia, but—”

He draws in a breath and Lorelai stops. She waits for him to say what he was going to say, but he doesn’t. He just sighs instead, and Lorelai can see him drop his shoulders, shuffle, rub a hand over his neck. She sees so clear it hurts. He dips his head when he’s nervous, hunches down, tries for small, but he can never be small, and she.

He breathes again. Lorelai contemplates hanging up, ending this whatever before it’s begun. But she knows he would call again and call until she answered, persistence his middle name, or maybe it’s Andrew or Glen, she can’t—

“I head about Luke. About you. And Luke. And I—” His breath hitches. She knows the sound. She heard it before. Then. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He pauses and waits, presumably for her, who else is on the phone, nobody that she knows, and she wants to speak, tries to speak, but she can’t. She can barely breathe, and he. “Are you okay?” he asks again, words low like the static humming over the line.

“I- I don’t. You called to check up on me?”

“Um, sort of.”

“You sort of called or called to sort of check up on me?”

“I sort of came over to check up on you.”

Lorelai blinks. “You came over.” 

“Yes.”

“To check up on me.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re outside my house right now?”

He pauses again. “Sort of.”

Lorelai runs a hand through her hair, tries for Steve McQueen cool. “You—”

“I’m sort of sitting on your couch.”

Oh. Oh. “Dean—”

“Well, I didn’t want to stand out there knocking because I knew that knocking loud enough to wake you up would wake Babette up, too, and I really didn’t think you wanted Babette knowing I was here. So I got the key from the turtle and let myself in, but I didn’t want to scare you by waking you up in your bedroom, so I called. And you don’t have to come down because I realized how stupid this was as soon as I put the turtle back, before really, but I’m leaving tomorrow and I didn’t know if I would be able to call you again because your place is a madhouse most of the time and I didn’t know who might answer, so I stayed. And called. You. So—”

“You were worried.”

Soft. “Yes.”

“About me.”

Softer still. “Yes.”

She smiles. She can’t help it. She should, she knows, but she doesn’t. She can’t. They’re pals. Friends, maybe, now, or something at least, and she.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” she says. “House breaker puts on the coffee.”

She can hear him smile. “One scoop or two?”

“Two, you heathen.”

Now she can hear him laugh. “Yes, ma’am.” He clicks off and Lorelai flops back on her bed. She hears water start up in the kitchen, and the sound feels more real to her than her heartbeat. He’s here. He’s really here. In her house. In her kitchen. Two months ago, he had her pressed against the wall of a Boston hotel, had her legs wrapped tight around his hips and one hand caught deep in her hair. Two months ago, she cried his name as she scraped stripes down his back, as he kissed the hollow of her throat and swept sure hands down her legs. Now he’s here in her kitchen making coffee because he’s worried. About her.

Lorelai shivers and drops the phone. 

She can feel his touch ghost across her body, callused palms pressing soft, so soft. She shivers again and stands, moves over to the mirror. Her cheeks flush pink in the moonlight, and she lifts her hair, flaps a hand before her face, stares at her reflection.

The scent of coffee drifts in, curls around her neck. She looks in the mirror. Her pink face stares back, pink, and Lorelai turns away. The door hangs open, a sliver of hall visible beyond. She takes a step toward the door, stops, and then takes another. Her Kitty clock watches her shuffle, and Lorelai would laugh if she could, nervous now like she never was at sixteen.

Coffee. It’s just coffee. She drinks coffee all the time. She—

She stops. She’s thinking and waiting, and she can’t think and wait. She won’t think and wait. Not anymore. Not when she waited before when she knows that she shouldn’t have, and look at her now, nervous because of Dean and coffee and best forgotten but still remembered nights two months ago. 

Lorelai shivers and sighs, draws in a breath and squares her shoulders. She eases out of her room, pauses, runs back in, grabs her robe, and then starts down the stairs to the kitchen and Dean.   
…………


	2. Bean-Flavored Battery Acid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai meets Dean for coffee. But it's not just coffee, and they both know it.

She leans against the archway and watches him search. He starts with the cabinet closest to the refrigerator and works his way out, top to bottom, left to right. He wears layers, grey over white, sleeves pushed up on his arms revealing slim strong skin and bones. Jeans sit low on his hips and she can’t tell if they’re the same pair from before. Not that she looks. Much. His jacket hangs crooked on one of her chairs, and two mugs wait for him and for her.

For them.

“What are you looking for?” she asks, and he doesn’t jump. He doesn’t even flinch, and she’d been extra quiet coming down the stairs.

“Sugar.”

“Why?”

“For the coffee.”

“You put sugar in your coffee?”

“No. I put sugar in _your_ coffee.” He looks back at her and grins. “Not all of us have stomachs like steel traps.”

Lorelai gasps. “Are you insulting my coffee?”

“Your coffee? No. The way you make it? Yes.”

“And I repeat: heathen.”

“Hey, I can’t help I like my stomach lining intact. The sugar, please.”

Lorelai heaves a sigh and jerks a finger toward the ceramic rooster by the back door. Dean follows her point and crosses the kitchen. He makes it in two strides, legs so long, like ladders or giraffes, and she watches him lift the lid, watches him peer inside and smile. He shakes his head, sending hair into his eyes, and she takes a step forward.

“What?”

Dean glances at her, eyes sly like his smile. He reaches into the rooster and pulls out the bag.

The empty bag.

Whoops.

“A funny thing happened on the way to the rooster,” she says, voice trailing off as he leans back against the door. He crosses his legs at the ankle, dangles the sugar bag in a loose long-fingered grip. She knows he’s trying not to laugh. Not very hard, no lip biting or mouth hiding, no weird twisted face mash either, but trying nonetheless, a purse of his lips, a raised eyebrow, and a, “The house of the two biggest sugar fiends in Stars Hollow, and you have no sugar.”

“We do. Did. We did.”

“When?”

“Uh- Yesterday.”

He raises the other brow. “You ran out of sugar yesterday?”

“Well, I was out of crack. I had to use something to get my fix before I traded myself on the mean streets for drug money.”

“The mean streets of Stars Hollow.”

It’s not a question, and Lorelai narrows her eyes. “The shady alley behind the Chat Club. All the druggies hang out there, don’t you know.”

“The druggist hangs out there. In his drug store.”

She opens her mouth, pauses, closes it, and then opens it again. Dean rubs a hand across his jaw, but she can see his shoulders shake, can see the corners of his eyes crinkle above his thumb. “You want coffee or not?” she snaps as she plops down at her table, at the empty mug waiting for her by her chair.

“Depends. Is it really coffee in there or your special stash?”

“Depends, again, on where you got the coffee.”

“The can in your cabinet.”

Lorelai looks at the cabinet and then she looks at Dean. He tilts his head and holds her stare, and she feels her face flush under his gaze. She looks away, off into the living room, and says, “Well, I guess you’re safe then. I keep my stash in the monkey lamp.”

“Good to know.”

“Yeah.”

Silence creeps between them with the grace of a drunken elephant. He watches her; Lorelai can feel him watching her as she stares down at her mug, pink with black polka dots. She glances up to see him duck his head. His hair needs a trim, the ends curling over his collar; she remembers how it slipped through her fingers and looks away.

Dean places the bag back in the rooster and the lid over the bag, slow and steady like both have a bomb and if he jiggles too hard the whole house will explode. Lorelai shifts in her seat and stares at the coffeepot. Dark roast special blend bubbles and pops, and her fingers twitch at the well known flavor. But she stays seated and Dean stays standing and they look at each other and look away, and Lorelai feels ridiculous, sitting but not talking, staring but not looking, so she says, “This is ridiculous,” and stands.

Dean nods. “I know. I tried to tell you before, with the key and the turtle and the—”

“No. _This_.” She waves a hand between them. “Sit. Please. I’m not- This is just coffee. It’s just coffee.”

Dean glances at the coffee. He tries to smile as he says, “To you, it’s just coffee. But to me it’s…”

She feels her stomach drop, a rollercoaster dip. “It’s what?”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. Bean-flavored battery acid?” A beat passes, silence and staring, and then he peers up at her, grin tugging at his mouth. Lorelai gapes even as she starts to laugh, and she looks for something to throw.

“You- What did I tell you about insulting the coffee?”

“Nothing. You asked if I was and then you called me a heathen. Again.”

“Well, mister, let me tell you. You do not insult coffee. Not in this house. Coffee is… It’s, uh…”

“A drink?”

Lorelai narrows her eyes again and Dean holds up his hands. “Sorry. Continue. Coffee is?”

“No.”

“Coffee is no?”

“No, I won’t continue. You think I’m just going to reveal the secrets of the coffee universe to a blasphemer such as yourself?”

“Once you’ve woken up more and figured out what to say, I do.”

He smiles at her, warm like winter evenings by a fire, and she. He came to check on her because he heard about Luke, about her and Luke, and he came even though they haven’t spoken for two months, not since. He came and he called and he made her coffee, and Lorelai feels tears prick her eyes. She turns away and grabs the coffeepot, pours herself a cup; she sees him take a step forward, smile slipping, shifting, melting to concern but losing none of its warmth.

“Lorelai? Are you—?”

“I didn’t—” She stops and shakes her head. Her face feels hot. A tear slides off the tip of her nose into her pink polka dotted mug. She figures she’ll need sugar now, sugar she doesn’t have and never had, not for months, to counteract the salt.

He reaches a hand toward her, stills, pulls it back. “Lorelai—”

“I didn’t know I would miss them so much. Today. But I do.” He waits and she feels his gaze envelop her like cotton. She wants to disappear into the embrace, forget everything, forget Christopher who hates her for not staying, forget Rory in England happy with Logan, forget Luke and Anna and how she wants to hate him for not letting her in, for letting her go, but she can’t. She can’t.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, and she looks at him as he reaches for her, as he pulls her in and wraps her up, presses a kiss to the top of her head. She cries into his shirt, turns the grey to black, and he whispers, soothes.

“I almost- I almost had it,” she says. “I thought- He said yes and he didn’t hesitate, and I thought- But then he did, and I understand now. I do. I don’t want to, but I do, and I miss him, Dean. I miss him so much.”

“I know you do.” He rubs circles on her back, draws lines through her hair with touches light like sunshine. “Have you tried talking to him?”

“I can’t. He has a daughter, and he has to focus on her, and I know. I knew. But I tried- I just- I don’t.”

He looks down at her. “What?”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

He cups her face, wipes her tears away again, again. “You’re not. You’re not alone. You have—”

“Rory. I know. But she—” Lorelai pulls away. The loss of touch slaps her, sucker punches her in the gut, but she moves back, more, further. The bedroom glows with light from the kitchen, and Lorelai can’t look. She can’t look, but she does. “This would devastate her,” she says and Dean stays silent.

He stays silent and Lorelai looks up, finds him staring at the floor. “Dean?”

“I don’t- I don’t think it would,” he says, still staring at the floor, hands fisted by his sides.

“Of _course_ it would. Dean—”

“I’m not saying it, this, won’t hurt her. I just—” He shakes his head and smiles. The strain of it, the sad acceptance, makes Lorelai ache. “She never loved me enough for this to devastate her.”

“Dean…”

“I’m not- It’s the truth, Lorelai. I’ve accepted it. And I- This didn’t happen because of Rory or in spite of Rory. It had nothing to do with Rory. It was you and me, and I- I don’t expect it to happen again. You love Luke. I know you love Luke. I just—” He looks down again and looks young, so young, fifteen and crazy in love with Rory. But then he finds her again, gaze solid and steady, and she knows the strength in those his hands, those arms, those bones. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says at last, and Lorelai knows that much at least is true.

She draws in a breath. “I’m okay,” she says. And she is or she will be, she hopes. Someday.

“Good. Good. That’s good.”

He nods and she nods and the silence returns, bubbles back between them like their coffee untouched. He breaks it with a breath, with a sigh in stages and a smile for her, and she watches him ease back, swallowing, hands searching for his jacket, fingers skimming cup rims and table tops for leather smooth. The distance grows and she knows what that does to her heart.

He bumps his chair, knocks his jacket to the floor. “I should—” he says and jerks a thumb toward the door, to the rooster really, and Lorelai says, “Stay,” as she takes a step forward.

“Lorelai—”

“Please.”

And he stops like she hoped and feared and knew he would. She takes another step, and he shivers and stares. She knows this is wrong, she knows that she shouldn’t, but the way he looks and the words he speaks pull her forward. She reaches out and he holds on, grips her hips, her waist; she forgets everything but the feel of him beneath her hands, the fall of his hair and the hitch of his breath as she says, “It’s just coffee.”

His eyes close. “No,” he says. “It’s not.” But he kisses her anyway, and Lorelai knows that much at least is true.  
…………


	3. Pop-Tart Percolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not just coffee.

Dean loves Rory. She loves Luke.

Or she thinks Dean loves Rory and she knows she loves Luke. But neither is here, only they are- him and her, them together- and that might be what matters. Lorelai doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything right now beyond the way Dean yanks at her robe, fingers fumbling with knots she double and triple tied to prevent just this. She knows only the way he hisses as she sneaks a hand under his shirt, both of them, two too many, as she runs her fingers down ridges like ruffles, muscles that twitch beneath her touch. 

She pushes him back until he hits the counter and then she leans up for another kiss. His mouth slides against hers and their noses bump like hips in a dance, a rumba or a salsa, maybe an electric slide. He abandons her robe to palm her cheeks, to change the angle, to slide deeper, harder. He tastes like cinnamon, Big Red bubblegum, five to a quarter pack and hot on her winterfresh tongue. And she shouldn’t like it, the taste, his taste, but she does, she does, and she presses closer until all space and doubt disappear between them, blood thrumming hard in her body, her veins. She reaches down and cups him and his head slams back, the cabinets rattling the plates as he shudders beneath her. His face flushes on a moan, peachy keen to an apple red blush, and Lorelai needs more.

She needs more. 

She presses down, steady as she goes, and his hips snap up. She runs a finger up his zipper, teases and touches, and he arches up into her, shivering. His mouth falls open as his eyes fall shut, as his hands scramble and slide on her kitchen tiles, and she sees his pulse in his throat, the quick pound of blood from his heart thudding fast. Lorelai feels an answering throb deep down in her gut. She feels a need for skin and heat, heat and friction, sweet hot skin to skin rubbing and moving and touching and god, right now, right now.

She lets go to dive in, but he grabs her hands in the gap and yanks her up. She rises and falls with the breath in his chest, no space between, just cotton and this. And she needs to move, needs him to move, needs him to keep looking at her like that, to keep pinning her down with a pupil blown gaze and lips slick from their kiss. He guides her back, his thumbs on her wrist as he slow waltzes them across the kitchen. Her thighs hit the table and he lifts her up, lays her flat, lifts her shirt and finally touches her, finally, _finally_ , touches her. Her pink mug falls at the skin to skin, at the palm hot on her breast, and she’s the one who scrambles and slides now, feels her heart thud fast in her chest. His thumb swipes rough on her nipple, and the mug shatters hard on the floor. 

Lorelai draws Dean in with her legs, scissors ankles behind his back and tugs at his shirts. He pulls back and strips, musses his hair as he rips both off, the grey and the white, up, over, and away by the stairs on the floor. And he smells like summer skies, like July heat in the afternoon. She runs her hands from one shoulder to the other, hates her robe and its double-triple-too many knotted knots for blocking their way, but then he grabs on and slides her down, pulls her to the table edge with one hand tucked around her belt, and she loves her robe, oh fuck does she love her robe.

His fingers brush across the bare skin of her stomach, and then he’s pulling. She rises up as he eases her pajamas down over hips and thighs, the blue of her boyshorts, so cool in the store, so hip and her. And he never looks away as he tosses it all, as he sinks down and touches her there, once, twice, teasing and touching and looking and giving her a taste of her medicine and of things to come, she hopes, she hopes, she hopes. 

Lorelai squirms and then groans, bangs a fist on the table and lopes a leg around his neck. He smirks against her knee and bites down, not soft, not hard, right enough to bruise in the morning, purple she knows, maybe blue, maybe both. Then he licks his way up, brands her skin with his lips and his tongue, and she can't, she needs, this is, he feels. 

She cries out as he slips a finger inside, one and then two, no finesse this time, just hard fast strokes in time with his tongue. Before, he whispered. Before, he kissed the crease of her thigh and smiled as she shivered and came, her hands tearing sheets as his name tore her throat. Now, he watches her with hot heavy eyes, adds a third finger and twists, and she’ll feel this for days, she knows, she knows, she knows she’ll feel this for days.

He bites the crease that he kissed before, but Lorelai still shivers and comes, still feels her body throb and mind blow wide like those summer skies. He stretches it out, licks inside, tongue still spicy from his cinnamon gum and the wrong, oh god, the wrong of this. And the kitchen echoes, throws her cry back at her. Lorelai closes her eyes against it. She feels nothing but the table beneath her and his fingers inside her and her heart in her chest, her breath in her throat. She closes her eyes and feels nothing, nothing but this. 

And then, he’s gone. He lifts her leg from around his neck, frees her from his fingers and his tongue, and the cool rush of air shocks her superheated skin. She opens her eyes on a shiver and finds him standing, shaking, staring out the window straight ahead at the moon, shining down strong on him, on them. He wipes a hand at his mouth and she looks away. The moon and the mug and the dark roast coffee stare back; they watch her as she sits, as he jerks back and looks away, as he still looks away. 

She slides down to legs unsteady and loose. She feels more exposed than she did before, stretched out flat beneath him. Lorelai tries to close her robe, limbs sated and heavy, mind spinning fast, so fast, and she knows this is wrong, not like before, knows she should, she should, but her mind spins, keeps spinning fast, and she can’t close her robe. She can’t, she can't. 

Dean takes a step toward the door and Lorelai reaches out, instinct operating full blast. He stumbles back and crashes against the counter, and the coffeepot rattles and the coffee swishes and he says, “Don’t,” and turns away. 

His hands clutch the countertop, knuckles white on the tile. He shudders out a breath, and Lorelai sees it fall down his spine, down his arms so long and strong and trembling now. He stays a moment and then shakes his head before pushing back. Dean looks around, not at her but around, then he moves away, over to the stairs.

“Dean, what—”

“I’m going home,” he says. His voice flows thick and rough, gravel on broken glass.

“What- Why?”

“You got what you wanted, and I-” He grabs his shirts, shakes his head again. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and he starts for the door, the front this time, away from her.

“Wait. Please.” He doesn’t and she speeds up; she catches him as he goes for the door. “Dean, wait.”

“Why? For coffee? For just coffee?” 

_It’s just coffee._

_No. It’s not._

Damn. Damn it. “Dean, I—”

“I can’t do just coffee. I thought I could, but I can’t. This- It means something. To me. It might not to you, but it does to-” 

“I came down. I didn’t have to. I shouldn’t have, god knows I shouldn’t have, because this, this is a mistake. A big mistake. A huge mistake. In fact, it’s a mistake of epic proportions. Godzilla proportions even. God, not even Godzilla proportions. Statue of Liberty proportions or Golden Gate Bridge proportions, I don’t know. Something big and epic in its proportions. But I came down, I did, and I- I don’t know. I don’t, I don't know anything anymore.” She closes her eyes and scrubs a hand on her face. Tears stain her cheeks, a wet scarlet A blotchy in its lettering, and she’s tired of crying, so very tired of crying.

Dean draws her in, whispers apologies in the shell of her ear. He kisses her brow, her temple, smoothes a hand over her tangled hair and rubs comfort down her back and forgiveness, too, but he shouldn’t and she shouldn’t and she. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

He shakes his head. “It’s all right. It doesn’t—”

“It does. I know it does. I just—”

“Lorelai—”

“No. No.” She eases back. She pulls away, not fast, not slow, just firm and steady. She squeezes his hands and puts space between them, distance much needed, some air for thinking, clear thoughts she hopes, she needs clear thoughts. “I’m sorry," she says. "I shouldn’t, I shouldn't have come down, and I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I shouldn’t have kissed you because it’s not fair, not to you, because you don’t deserve to get mixed up in this, this mess, this—”

“Lorelai—”

“You were right. You were.” She lets go of his hands, increases the space between them, empty space, cold space. “You should go. Go home, back to Boston, go find a nice, not crazy girl, or a nice, not crazy boy if you want, just someone nice and not crazy to make you happy because you deserve to be happy.”

He ducks his head and looks at her. “So do you.”

She smiles then. She can’t not. “I will be. Someday. I think.” She hopes.

He watches her and she holds his gaze; she has to or he’ll stay and he can’t stay. He can’t. She tries to smile, something reassuring, and she must succeed because Dean nods and steps back, reaches again for the door. She lets him this time, wraps her arms around her waist, and he looks back as he opens the door. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “I swear. Hand to God or may lightning strike me down or my house be cursed with strange little midget trolls for all eternity.”

His mouth twitches and she feels it fast in her gut. “I think those are commonly referred to as gnomes," he says. "In some circles anyway.”

She nods once and drops her eyes to the floor. The sleeve of his shirt, the grey one, catches her gaze, hem sweeping over the threshold to her front door. Lorelai shivers; she sees Dean snap straight, sees his mouth open in her peripheral, a goodbye maybe, or a final question of concern, possibly some famous last words, something, but he closes it without a word and leaves.

The door eases to behind him, and Lorelai would breathe a sigh of relief if she could, no breath in her lungs, no air anywhere. She looks down at herself, at the mess, her mess, and she forgets the feel of his hands on her skin, she wills herself to forget. 

She returns to the kitchen, fingers finally freeing the knots of her robe. She gathers the sides, pulls them tight over her body as she surveys the scene, the broken mug the only sign of him, of them. 

That, and his jacket.

Black leather pooled by the table on the floor, abandoned. She stares, waiting for something, she doesn’t know. The jacket to disappear maybe or dance a jig, to flap out of here like a bat out of hell or stand up and scream at her for ruining this like she ruins everything. But the jacket lays flat and Lorelai still stares and then she starts forward and gathers it in her arms. She smells grease and cider, the clean hint of soap and winter, and Dean. Just Dean.

Breathing in, she slips off her robe, one shoulder at a time. The cotton spills fast down her body like a waterfall. Naked, skin shivering in the cool night air, she slides into the jacket. The sleeves dangle past her hands and she pushes them back, bunches them up by her elbows until her fingers poke through. The leather skims the tops of her knees and she closes her eyes to feel the weight on her bones, the jacket heavy on her body like memories on her mind. 

She hears him then, a quick gasp of breath, a shuffle and a step and a. Lorelai breathes out, and she feels him in the room, feels him watching her, feels him stare. And she knows it was never just coffee. It was never just about Luke or Rory or Christopher, never just about forgetting, never just about caring and comfort even when it was about all of those things, and it was. It is. But it was him and her, too. It is him and her, and she. 

She opens her eyes and turns around. 

And the look on his face, the look as he stares and he sees. Lorelai feels the flush burn through her chest. His gaze slides down and she shifts her weight, thighs still sticky from before and hot from him. She breathes in, opens her mouth, seeks air to breath, and his eyes snap up, zero in on her lips, on the quick swipe of her tongue and worry from her teeth and. 

She sees his hands close to fists and his jaw clench. She sees him shudder once as he tries to breathe. He dressed outside, shirts crooked and mussed, and she knows that anyone who saw him now would know what he did, what he’s done, and the thought, the thought, oh god. 

“You forgot your jacket,” she says, fingers at the pockets, skirting in then out. He lifts his head and watches her through half closed eyes, watches as she eases closer. He makes no move either forward or back, toward or away; he just stands and stares and Lorelai moves closer.

The coffee gurgles and the fridge hums. Silence slides between them, breathes in harsh pants, pulses and shifts and presses about them. Lorelai stops a foot away, close enough to smell the crisp fall air clinging to his clothes, his skin, close enough to see the green in his eyes and the shadow of his lashes on his skin as he peers down at her. 

“I don’t know what this is,” she says. She meant to speak strong, assured, but the words slip out on a whisper. She reaches out and lays light fingers on white knuckles, fists closed tight and tense. The hand trembles beneath her touch. “I don’t know what this is,” she says again. “But it’s something. It’s—”

“Shut up. Just- Shut up, fuck.”

“Dean—”

He surges forward and steals his name with a kiss. Lorelai arches up, pushes up into him and the kiss, and Dean lifts her, wraps her legs tight around him. They stumble out of the kitchen, his lips on her neck, her hands in his hair, and they crash into the bathroom, Lorelai flipping the light as they pass because she needs to see this. She needs to see.

Dean hits the wall and their hips align, leather and skin and denim and heat, and she sinks down, rubs and seeks, blood thrumming hard in her body. Dean pushes off the wall and they bounce off the sink, bump bottles of soap and cream and toothpaste to the floor, and he sets her down and presses her back to the mirror with a kiss. She starts to shrug out of his jacket, but he stills her with a hand on her wrist. 

“No," he says. "Leave it on.” 

And the look, oh god, the look in his eyes and his voice scratched like a record, all rough static and thick like southern summer air. He flicks at the zipper down by her thighs, and Lorelai shudders at the heat of him, his hand, so close, so close. 

She scrambles for skin, shoves at his shirts, maps out the planes of his chest and his waist. Dean marks her from knee to hip, rubs rough hands up her legs as he lifts them higher, higher. His fingers brush against her and she shivers and keens, fumbles with his snap and slides down the zipper. She closes her hand tight around him and he hisses in her ear, paints bruises on her skin as his hands clench hard on her hips. She reaches with her other hand, cups her palm, touches and fondles and drags a light nail across his skin, going further, back. He bites down hard, lips going white, and Lorelai leans up, licks at his mouth, and he nips at hers, slides his tongue inside, slick and slow. He pulls back as she strokes up, searches and finds her eyes, holds her gaze as he grabs her shirt and rips it from the bottom to the top, freeing her chest to his touch, his stare.

God. Oh god. She yanks at his jeans, pushes them down and her hand follows suit, squeezing and sliding, bringing them closer, closer. Dean shudders and she feels him, oh god, she needs this.

“Do you- Christ, oh god, do you-?”

“Yes, yeah.” He paws at his jacket, pushes into pockets, pulls out keys and change and yes, oh yes. She hears the sharp clink of coins on chrome and the foil crinkle and then Dean knocks her hands away. He kisses her temple, her brow, the curve of her cheek and the bend in her jaw, and then he slaps a hand down hard on the sink and slides inside.

And it. And she. She can’t. Oh god. Sweat drips off the ends of his hair, curled by his eyes, wide and black and locked on her. She moves to his rhythm, breathes in his air, squeezes his hand, and looks in his eyes. Her body starts to tense, to tingle and throb, and he doesn’t look away, he doesn’t, she can’t, she.

He drifts a hand over her skin, her throat, goes down, down. He watches her breathe, never looks away, pushes in faster, harder, and she, god. His other hand eases her hair back, fingertips light by her eyes, and the feel, the contrast, hard and rough and soft and gentle, the way he looks at her, oh god, the way, it pushes her over the edge and she comes with a cry strangled in her throat, blood rushing swift, nerves firing fast beneath her skin. 

His arms start to shake by her legs. Lorelai lifts a hand and looks in his eyes. She touches his mouth and then cups his cheek, and he turns into the curve of her palm, tenses and then stills, and Lorelai watches him break, watches his eyes fall shut as he shudders and comes.

Dean drops his head on her shoulder; Lorelai wraps her hands around his arms to hold herself up. Neither move for a moment save to breathe, his breath hot on her neck, hers thick in her throat. She feels soft and warm, loose, languid, body still humming a melody of the past ten, twenty, thirty minutes. He moves and his hair tickles her cheek and he smells like sex and summer and when he eases out of her, the ache, the ache, the sweet sticky hot raw ache, makes her clutch his hands and forget to breathe.

She breathes in, shifts and slumps back against the mirror, searching for comfort on the hard counter. Her eyes drift shut as he pulls back and Lorelai feels his fingers linger on her legs. The toilet flushes, and the rush of water sounds like Niagara in the soft silence. 

The water fades and his hands move against her legs, settle back behind her knees. One of his thumbs strokes her skin, pulls slow and steady, nudges her closer and closer to sleep. Lorelai lifts heavy eyes and looks, and Dean stares back, quiet and mussed and all because of her. 

He dips his head and his hands still on her legs. “I guess I should—”

“Carry me upstairs to my nice comfy bed because, as good as sinks are for washing faces and brushing teeth, and, oh yeah, for sex, they kind of suck for sleeping? Yeah," she says. "I think you should.” 

He licks his lips and peers up at her. _It’s not just coffee… this means something, to me._ He stares at her for a beat and then says, “You do?” 

Lorelai pushes off the mirror. She bites back a moan at the lush pull of muscles beneath her skin and leans into Dean. She lays her hands down over his and says, “Yeah. I do.” She leans in more, drops her voice to a whisper. “I’ll make you pancakes in the morning if you do.”

She sees one corner of his mouth twitch. “Pancakes?”

“Okay, Pop-Tarts. I’ll make you Pop-Tarts.”

“You’ll make me Pop-Tarts.”

“I’ll have you know Pop-Tart toasting is a fine art. It’s taken me years to adjust the settings on my toaster to the perfect toasting time and temperature. Lots of loss, lots of pain, lots of burnt chocolate Tarts, and all so you can have a healthy breakfast to go along with your coffee.”

“Your crack-laced coffee.”

“Yes," she says and smiles. "My crack-laced coffee.”

Dean looks at her and shakes his head, but his twitch widens into a grin, soft and a little crooked. He wraps her arms around his neck and lifts her from the sink, gathers her up in a loose embrace and kisses her, soft and a little crooked like his smile. He starts to shuffle out of the bathroom. Lorelai rests her head on his shoulder. Bottles lay scattered and broken on her floor, the sharp edges of her mug glint in the kitchen, and Lorelai knows this is still a mistake of epic Godzilla on the Golden Gate bridge proportions. But Dean runs a soft hand up her back, the other tight on her waist, and Lorelai flips the light as they pass. 

She’ll worry about it all in the morning.  
…………  
end


End file.
